The Dark of Hell
by abuchild
Summary: With no memory of how she got there, Carter is back in Hell-sort off-only this time she's merely a spirit, reliving her forgotten memories.


Hey y'all! Yeah...sorry I'm the worst updater ever but here's a short little novella about Carter's sojourn in Hell. It'll lead into the sequel but will only be a couple chapters. So enjoy!

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The all-too familiar and tragic sounds of the damned abruptly overwhelmed the girl's senses making the hair on the back of her neck stand on end and her skin uncomfortably tingle. Her eyes snapped open, fully expecting the searing heat to mutilate her skin, but it never did. Nor did the smell of the tortured souls around her engulf her nostrils.

It was then that Carter noticed the shrieks weren't as shrill and the flames weren't quite as blinding as she remembered. It was as if everything around her were muted.

A choked cry in the corner startled her into a defensive position but once she saw who was there, she could only stare. Carter was staring straight at her twin, who was crumpled in a little ball in what she now realized was her cell in the pit.

This wasn't real.

It was her memory.

Somehow she was _in_ her memories, viewing them as a third party similar to how she witnessed Dean torturing Alastair all those months ago. Only, she didn't care how she was there as another figure was suddenly thrown unceremoniously into the cell. Carter recognized the man's unmistakable chiseled features and strong jawline as he pitifully crawled his way to the back of the cell, as far away from the chilling demons at the door.

_"Dean,"_ Carter gasped, reaching out to help him only for her hand to phase right through his body. She was nothing but a ghost and she had to guiltily watch as Dean dragged his body across the floor, unrestrained tears tumbling down his cheeks. He struggled to choke back his sobs, his fingertips burying themselves in the dirt on the floor as he tried to will the pain away.

"Stop."

Carter looked over to her memory-self as she spoke, finding her curiously watching Dean.

"Stop trying to fight it off," she spoke again, moving from her corner in the cell over to Dean.

"Wh-at?" he croaked back, his chest rising and falling in an unnatural rhythm.

"The pain," she said sitting down next to him, her back against the wall, "They want you to suffer. Lie on your back and rest your head on my lap."

The distrust and hesitancy was only too clear in his hazel-green eyes.

"Trust me," she gently urged.  
"Why should I?" Dean's voice cracked as he spoke.  
"Who else do you have? Let me help you," she pleaded.

Despite the pain wracking his entire body, Dean took the time to eye this girl up as if to gauge her intent. It didn't take a genius to detect that she had been there for quite some time. Her body was mutilated with scars old and new and covered in soot and dried blood, tattered rags barely hanging onto her limbs. And he saw the obvious pain and fear in her eyes that were most likely in his as well.

But he also saw something else.

A spark. It was a light of hope. He couldn't miss it because it was the only good he had seen in hell. What she had to hope in, he didn't know, but he was drawn to her by this fact. He knew absolutely nothing of this girl except for her name in their brief meeting when he was brought down from the hooks. But he knew he could trust her beyond a shadow of a doubt.

So he did as he was instructed, crying out as his body protested at the movement.

"They want you to suffer at the pain, so you need to stop fighting it off and let it happen. As soon as you do that you'll learn to ignore it and not give them the satisfaction. Close your eyes and try to relax," she gave him the nearly impossible task.

_"I remember this,"_ Carter incredulously spoke out loud as she settled against the opposite wall, watching her memory unfold.

"Focus on the pain for just a minute," she tightly held his hand, feeling his fingers nearly crush hers, "Feel how it courses through your body—"  
"How is this supposed to help," he challenged through grit teeth.

"Just listen to me. You have to let it run its course or you'll never find any sense of peace in this place. Now focus. Hold my hand tighter if you must but don't scream and don't try to fight the pain," she swept his hair back trying to calm him some, "As it becomes too much to bear you need to think of whatever makes you happiest and hold on to that."

Almost immediately his breathing quickened, becoming terrifyingly shallow and his body tensed up tremendously, his face contorting from the pain but still he never screamed.

"Hold on," she whispered a glimmer of worry swimming into her eyes as his body began to slightly seize, "Hold on, Dean."

All at once his body relaxed, and he let out rush of air from his lungs. The grip he had on her hand loosened but did not completely let go. She looked down and found a pair of hazel-green eyes staring back at her.

"Thank you" he softly spoke, his breath returning to normal.  
"You won't feel anything pleasant but at least you won't feel any pain," she told him as he lifted his head and sat up next to her.

It didn't take him long to notice how suddenly uncomfortable she seemed, her body slightly shying away from him and her eyes distinctly avoiding his gaze.

"Does it work out there?" he asked, looking toward the orange glow emanating from their cell door.  
"If it did then there would be no hell," she plainly said, sharply striding over to the corner she came from.

As if things weren't strange enough, the scene before Carter began to melt away just as her head started to throb. Her surroundings—or herself, she couldn't tell—swirled around and around until a new scene began to unfold and the headache ebbed away. Eyes beginning to focus, Carter found herself in the outer circle with her memory-self and Dean. They were already several yards away scaling a monstrous cliff face. Even in the distance Carter could see the ancient script embedded in the rocks and recalled what story it told. In the blink of an eye, Carter was on the same ledge as her past watching herself struggle to gain a foothold.

"Let me help," Dean offered his hand out to her. For a brief moment she glanced at his hand but then finally hauled herself up.  
"I got it," she grunted, getting back to her feet.  
"Why do you always do that?" he asked as she walked by him.  
"Do what?"

"It's like you're afraid of me or something. You're always avoiding me and never take my help," he called her out but found that she was intently staring off behind him with a curious gaze.

"Now what?" he asked, annoyed that she ignored him.  
"I've never been up here," she admitted striding past him but then stopped when she eyed a strange path.

The entrance of the tunnel was dark as night, wedged in the middle of a crevice in the cliff face nearly impossible to see if it weren't for the pockets of fire the led straight to it. She was transfixed on that tunnel, unable to tear her eyes away from it. There was just something strange about it just pulling her to the entrance.

"Where do you suppose that goes?" she asked more to herself than to Dean, shivering when a small gust of cold wind seemed to blow from the mouth of that tunnel.

_"That tunnel,"_ Carter spoke feeling the same pull her past-self felt.

"Dean—"

"There's a staircase over here," Dean called over to her already a couple steps up.

Dean's voice tore her gaze away from the tunnel and she looked over to him. It was impossible to miss the enthusiasm in his voice, even if it was barely noticeable. She's spent close to two years in Hell with this hunter and there was something about him that she took a liking to noticing his every nuance.

But it scared her.

Why should she trust this man?

Sure he's a hunter and she had briefly met his father but he's in hell.

He's there for a reason.

"There are more markings on these walls," he continued smoothing his hand over the rough stone, "More like pictures. Come take a look."

She joined him some ways down, eyes trailing over the massive mural etched into the cliffside.

"It's what happened when they fell," she realized they were looking at depictions of fallen angels, crying, holding onto each other in misery as God frowned down upon them, "They were sad."

"They betrayed their father. They deserved what they got," Dean almost bitterly reminded her.

His words hauntingly echoed somewhere deep in her gut and she found she couldn't look at him anymore.

"He escaped, fought his way to Earth over this bridge," Dean continued to examine the mural, unaware of her change in mood.  
"Fought?" she wondered aloud, "Fought what? He's an angel."  
"Dunno it doesn't show anything. Just the devil fighting next to two _ugly_-ass monsters."

"Sin and Death."  
"What?" he incredulously looked at her.  
"Just like in Paradise Lost," she frowned, "They protect the road between Hell and Earth. I'm bettin' they're the ones that strung us up like Christmas lights when we first got here."

Dean visibly cringed at the memory.

"But what was he fighting?" she scanned over the images.  
"What does it matter? He's locked up now," Dean shrugged his shoulders.  
"Because it means something else was down here before they were all banished," she pointed out, another gust of chill wind embracing the souls.

"Please tell me you felt that," she looked back over at the tunnel, this time Dean's gaze following hers.  
"It was cold," he nodded.  
"We should get back. We've been out here too long," she walked away without so much as a glance back at him.

This time Dean noticed her indifference, something that—other than his first day in hell—she shown him every time he's with her. And other than demons, she's the only one he can talk to and it kills him that he can't use his infamous Winchester charm over her even if it was only to make a friend.

"Are we going to make it back in time?" he grunted, lowering himself from the last ledge onto the ground.  
"Come on," she urged, breaking off into a sprint.

Carter hesitated, watching her past-self dash off with Dean but then turned to look up at that cliff. She remembered how scared she was when she first met Dean and her conflicted feelings about wanting another friend like John Winchester. But anything else after that, Carter couldn't remember a thing. She would have to watch all her memories to regain what she lost.


End file.
